Cambodia’s biggest lake is running dry, taking forests and fish with it

[geovalin]

Drought and dams have pushed Tonle Sap into dangerous decline, threatening its swamp forests and the fish nurseries there that provide most of the nation's protein.

 

Hun Sotharith recalls when he moved to Cambodia’s Tonle Sap to become a fisherman. It was the early 1990s, and the lake's freshwater swamp forest where he fished was so dense that it could take Sotharith, a former soldier, a day and a half to find the way back to his floating village.

 

Back then, during the six-month rainy season, the vast wetland became a place to feed, breed, and hide for a wide diversity of fish, including the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish. “Everywhere was forest, and fish was abundant,” says Sotharith.

 

Today, only remnants of that forested water world remain in Koh Chivang, the five-village district on the northwestern end of the lake where Sotharith is now deputy chief. A fire in the 2016 dry season burned 80 percent of the district’s flooded forest, destroying critical fish habitat and causing many of the 13,000 residents, who live in floating houses, to abandon fishing; they now grow chili and other crops.

 

read more https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/08/cambodia-tonle-sap-lake-running-dry-taking-flooded-forest-fish/

[hotchilli]

Hun Sens legacy..

[Barry343]

Shows China has no care for the survival of others why hasn't the UN stepped in, is it because they are Buddhist and not Muslim?

[Burma Bill]

38 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Hun Sens legacy..

With due respect, not at all!  Global warming and CHINESE dams on the Mekong way upstream from Cambodia.

Drought and dams have pushed Tonle Sap into dangerous decline

Map shows existing and proposed dams. Tonle Sap Lake is at the center bottom and relies on monsoon flood waters from the Mekong refilling it.

 

[Deli]

Bombing the Chinese dams might be a solution...

[Anant72]

No worries, Hun Sen's pal XI will come to the rescue! XI will not want to lose his Cambodian investment. 

[Ireland32]

Maybe China , Their Landlord will step in and do something , Baaaawwwaaaaa

[hotchilli]

11 hours ago, Burma Bill said:

With due respect, not at all!  Global warming and CHINESE dams on the Mekong way upstream from Cambodia.

Dually noted, climate change has had some affect.

When I said "Hun Sen's legacy" the inference was he never apposed the Chinese for building so many dams upstream which is a major issue on the river level of the Mekong, even now showing the same problems for Thailands fishermen, this is manifesting itself downstream in the lakes without the same run-off or flooding that used to be an annual occurrence..

He is so in bed with Xi Jinping that he cannot upset the leader in anyway, Ji now owns & runs Cambodias infrastructure programme and economy.

Edited August 18, 2020 by hotchilli